If you’ve ever seen me, you can pretty easily come to the conclusion that I don’t skip a lot of meals.
I was, at one time, more height-weight proportionate than I am now, but that was then.
But again, as you might be able to decipher without any Sherlock Holmes-esque deduction skills, I also like Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is, truth be told, my favorite non-Santa Claus-associated holiday.
Other than Father’s Day, Thanksgiving Day is the only day I can really lounge around the house and do nothing not of my own choosing.
I realize that sounds terribly unfair to my wife, but in truth, she’s very happy in the kitchen.
I’m very happy eating turkey and mashed potatoes. It’s a match made in Heaven.
But, long about now, the annual grousing begins about whether the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions should have exclusive rights to the Thanksgiving Day football games.
Thanksgiving Day games are nearly as iconic as that Super Bowl thing you may have heard about.
Football and overeating. Also, truly a match made in Heaven.
For football fans in New Mexico and surrounding areas, I understand your frustration.
“Enough with the Cowboys!” many a non-Dallas fan has quipped to me in my day. Those, such as myself, who don’t much care for Dallas, don’t care to see them week after week after week.
The last couple of years don’t seem to have been as severe of a Cowboys overdose on local TV. Maybe it’s because there are more than just two or three games a week on the tube now or maybe I’ve just grown numb to the constant Cowboys and/or Broncos bombardment.
Sure, there are still several weeks when KASA Fox 2 or KRQE decide they’d rather show Sham-Wow infomercials rather than football when they don’t have the broadcast rights to Dallas or Denver, but I guess a few of those per season are expected.
In this instance, a little bit of history of Thankgiving Day football might be appropriate.
The Lions were believed to be the first NFL team to schedule and Thanksgiving Day game when they were moved from Portsmouth, Ohio, to Detroit, in 1934. In the late 1960s, as the NFL was experimenting with extending its reach to national television, it looked for volunteers to play a Thanksgiving Day game and the young Dallas franchise, eager to get into the national spotlight, volunteered.
So, OK. I’m with you in that I don’t want to have to watch the Cowboys anymore than I absolutely have to and Detroit rarely gives its fans, or anyone else, for that matter, a reason to watch Lions’ games.
But in this instance of Thanksgiving football, I have to opine on the side of the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions.
Without those two storied franchises, Turkey Day football wouldn’t exist. Ergo, they have first dibs at the Thanksgiving Day games as long as they want them.
Indigestion notwithstanding.